Allentown Band's Sousa concert has special patriotic meaning

July 04, 2010|Paul Carpenter

When John Philip Sousa brought his famed Marine Band and its rousing patriotic music to Allentown, 118 years ago this month, they did not have dazzling electronic signs at Music Hall, so typically a boy in knickers walked across the stage holding a placard to tell the crowd which number was coming up.

That was during Sousa's farewell tour with the Marine Band, but he often returned to the Lehigh Valley with his civilian band. A Bethlehem Globe news item in 1897 noted that Sousa's band played "El Capitan," a favorite march, and I'm sure there was a big cheer when the kid in knickers displayed the placard for it.

For special concerts, the Allentown Band has continued the tradition of the youngster in knickers walking back and forth across the stage displaying the placards. On Friday evening, during that band's Fourth of July weekend concert at West Park, there was a boy once again showing the crowd an "El Capitan" placard.

(Actually, I'm cheating when I discuss this in the past tense, because the old meanies at The Morning Call make me file my Sunday column on Friday. I'm pretty sure I have the facts right, however, because I checked beforehand with Ron Demkee, the conductor, Jack Baker, business manager/clarinet player.)

Anyhow, I can assure you I was there Friday evening, and this time the kid in knickers was Adam Smith, 12, grandson of crackerjack trombone player Jeff Krause.

There were other Sousa numbers, including "Peaches & Cream," one of my favorites; a few Gershwin pieces; and, adhering to another Sousa tradition, vocal performances by Phoebe (soprano) and Eric (tenor) Fennell.

As always with the Allentown Band, the grand finale featured Sousa's great patriotic march, "Stars and Stripes Forever." If you've never been in West Park when the brass section and piccolos come to the front of the stage to blast away at the climax of "Stars and Stripes," you have not lived.

For some, another traditional part of the program was especially moving on this Fourth of July weekend. When the band played "Wild Blue Yonder," Air Force veterans (including me) were asked to stand. They did the same thing to honor other veterans — "Marine Corps Hymn" (for Marines), "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" (Army), "Anchors Aweigh" (Navy), and "Semper Paratus" (Coast Guard).

If you missed Friday evening's Fourth of July shindig at West Park, the Allentown Band plans to perform the same program again tonight at Souderton Park in Souderton. The music starts at 7 p.m.

All this talk of patriotism and the Fourth of July got me thinking about the nation's birth and the document reprinted on the preceding page, which, naturally, made me think of when I went to Japan in the 1950s.

One of the things that impressed was the way a young woman, or anyone else, could walk down Tokyo's darkest alleys late at night without being bothered. Throughout Japan, there was almost no crime.

Police officers were not armed. They did not need to be; everyone respected them, and they, in return, bent over backward to be polite and helpful. This was a nation with total gun control; this was a serene civilization. (It didn't last. Crooks discovered the advantage of being armed when they knew everybody else wasn't, and Japanese police now pack pistols.)

In 1960, when I returned to California, there was culture shock. Cops were rude, pistol-packing toughs who acted as if it was their role to control the public, not serve it. I concluded that America's big problem was the lack of gun control, which made everybody inimical. There must be a way to overcome the constraints of the Second Amendment, I decided, and I set out to find it. Get rid of guns and we'll be serene, too.

As a passionate advocate of gun control, I studied everything I could find on that topic and on the history of the nation's origins. I took history and government courses in college, but I never learned as much there as I did from reading what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the most inspired system of government the world has ever known.

Reluctantly, I realized that George Washington was right. So was Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and all the other giants who knew what happens when only the ruling forces are allowed to be armed. George III happens. Tyranny happens.

The American Revolution began more than a year before the document on the preceding page was enacted in Philadelphia. This nation began on the issue of whether private citizens have a right to be armed in their own defense, as disputed at Lexington and Concord.

So the Founding Fathers enacted the Second Amendment as the second most important part of the Bill of Rights, using the term "militia," which they all agreed meant all armed citizens who are not under government control.

It has taken 235 years to finally get that essential part of the Bill of Rights fully acknowledged. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gun control this past week is one more reason that this Fourth of July celebration is special.